Couple of Little Celebrations

Me & The Book :))

I thought of meeting you face to face to share my happiness of this book that I am holding :)) Some of my poetry is published as part of this collection, alongside poetry from some amazing poets that I have come to admire and adore for their absolutely magical art of words. It is available on Amazon for download on Kindle here for $0.99. Do check it out to see its description and if it interests you.

Step Into the New You – image sourced from the India Currents article

And in another little celebration and I am thrilled to share with you that an article of mine was selected by a community media platform India Currents to be published as part of their January theme – Renewal : You and the World around You. I chose to focus on my favorite topic, you can read it here: Step Into the New… You. I would love to know your thoughts on it.

Heartfelt Gratitude for all your support, reading and meaningful interactions that has afforded me tremendous growth as a person and this journey with words as a writer. It is more like pouring these surges of expression that come and what a privilege to be read and received! These tiny expansions of publishing in the outer world are a spillover of all the love in this inner world of WP where I first dipped my toes and then kept swimming in this world of writing and sharing.

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Magical Glimpses

Peer Within

Photo by myself

I was drawn out of my way to peek in to this web of roots, branches and shadows on water. I felt as if I was pulled in towards the womb of the Earth. I had posted the original picture in this post last month. The words describe the special experience of being there.

Photo by myself

This glimpse simply made me feel blessed. The beautiful goose was peacefully strolling around ahead of me and as I reached this curve, I found it sheltering here with such ease and quiet. Reminding me of how we share this planet, how we belong to the same nature and can find such rest & respite if we would choose to.

Trying to be Smart

Photo Credit: Manish Doshi

It is amusing to watch back at myself
Trying to become this and that
As good possible and then the best
To become that part of the puzzle
That would fit perfectly in this world

Until I learned to feel and listen to my heart
Simply Be that which I am in my soul
This garment I am weaving will never be done
Because it is this life itself that I am living
I love how perfectly it fits me exactly where I am

Yes life now fits me perfectly
Now that I have stopped trying to fit in …

 

P.S. This post is a contribution to ForgivingFridays of ForgivingConnects

Of Truthfulness

Photo Credit: Manish Doshi

It is courageous vulnerability
Not a weakness
It is soul confidence
Not an arrogance
It is pure truthfulness
Not a lack of humility
It is heartfelt gratitude
Not a sign of neediness

It is actually an humble attempt
To persist in this made up world
With absolute will and trust
To insist on a world made of Love

Agnized their’s is a lonesome way
Greatest battles fought only within
Rain flowing from the eyes of turmoil
Emotional storms cleansing the heart soil

This is true of the ones who have tasted
The brutality of the life of humanness
The ambrosial essence of existence itself
Their tenacity time & again tested

A strength seemingly divine revealed
Ceded to the oceanic universal current
Soul-calling of intention keeps the ship asail
In the guided direction that Source avails

HeartBreak

Photo Credit: Manish Doshi ‘Sunrise on Kauai’

Sunrise on Kauai – No matter how much the clouds of misperception take over, the true light of the sun manages to appear in all its glory and beauty, as the glowing orange pressed down and the golden lining on the surface. There is no stopping of the brightness leaking on to the cloud right above, in the vicinity, turned all gold and glowing, the beauty of it all is ours to see.

 

P.S. Dear Friends, I have enjoyed the process of creating these picture quotes a lot lately 🙂 This is the first that I am sharing with you here. Let me know what you think, I will keep sharing more.

 

Yoga – My Work & Life

Will I get to the world Before the world gets to me?

Photo: Atanu Chakraborty “Trust where You are“

Sheer element of trust in the unknown
The future moment or some person
That’s the power of your pure Being
Only stability on what you could be leaning
You know it from your knowing, perceiving & feeling

Everything else is always ever-changing
The moment itself changes & precepts too
Flow fluidly, fun with it have you

Choose courageously, fear is futile
Connect joyously, it’s all worthwhile
To the moments and those persons
Exactly as you feel inclined
All forms of doubt fully declined

Buy not the close-mindedness
And the attitudes of limited-ness
Of the world as your own

Get to the world wildly & merrily
Before the world gets to you heavily
The lies will try to bring you down
Trust that the truth to you is known
Buoyant is its lightness & brilliant its brightness

Look back and find nothing as ever lost
Only gained through lessons learnt most
That is exactly why you are never wrong
The choices you made were best among
You trusted in the way you felt
Regardless of what to others it meant …

 

Originally published on Feb 8, 2016. This poem is a powerful reminder of my own words to myself, today.

Dear Debbie, I offer this poem as a contribution to ForgivingFridays at ForgivingConnects. Your blog is a huge support to building acceptance and trust within.

Thinking Aloud

Photo Credit: Manish Doshi “Moments of sunrise, Kauai”

I realized I always used to think aloud
It was wrong I was told & felt at times

I realize now what was right about it
Over the years I have started taking responsibility for what I think!

Aligning thoughts to higher truths
The freedom it brings is amazing
For now what I think is what I say
What I say is what I think aloud

Not a care but know it very well
Thought and word of intention
Is how I contribute to Creation

That which I call my world and reality
Emerges from thought, word & beyond
As if built brick by brick
One wonder & one moment at a time

This habit of mine I think served well!

 

P.S. This post was originally published on Oct 12, 2015.

Change …BEING through it…

Change chooses it’s own garments. Sometimes very strange and unexpected ones.

Sometimes we know exactly what bothers us. We talk about it at length, discuss and dissect the projected repercussions. We find solace in the use of our intelligence to come to a logical, comfortable, understanding and conclusion.

Sometimes the overall appearance of change causes great turmoil and emotions. Lot of energies get stirred.  There is no mind involved to give it language, no thoughts or words. Just an intensity in our own Being.

The sensitive or aware ones have stayed awake to the slightest hints of turbulances on the slate of their consciousness. They imbibe the energy of chaos and jitters around. They feel the discomfort but are themselves connected with trust in the larger scheme of things. That there is goodness of existence in all that ripples through.

The change is sometimes the storm or the force that awakens all that is hidden for long. Use this force of change to explore what is stirring inside you. What is it that is pinching the feeling of goodness inside you. Go after that within you and your choices that keep you from getting a good night sleep. Choose the next best thing that you can do for yourself and then for those in immediate relation to you.

When turmoil of change comes, the choices are to either become very small in perception, as compared to the grandest scheme of things, or to become so grand in your way of being, that you are able to contain all that is happening around you, with utmost stability.

Close your eyes. Bring yourself to sit in front of the ocean, with the sun shining above the horizon. The Sun is the source of it all on this planet. Listen to the sound of your own breath …or listen to the sound of the waves. Whichever sound gives you the smoothest experience …choose that! Perceive yourself as this miraculous part of the grand scheme of things. The Source of goodness provides to all without discrimination. Trust that it prevails in all humans and situations. Invoke it as part of your experience now!

Look at the ocean …the infiniteness of it. Open your heart as if you contain that expansiveness. Breathe luxuriously. It is your foremost right. The ocean is vast …everything else are waves …of change, of any worry, of any turmoil …they pass, resolve …all dormant goodness would be eventually awakened …even more deeply …let us make the beginning within us!

 

Show up with your gifts

If you think that you know someone who flaunts
Step back and see what is it that daunts
If all of us wholeheartedly express
All that we tend to repress
Show up with all the best we have
Anything that helps feel bold and suave

Imagine what a world it would be
If each one is an inspiration to thee
There’s no worry of guard against envy
We carve our existence through
Expressions of joy, material and divine too

Take time to retreat within and cultivate
That which is hidden and you can create
Look at other’s gifts as deserved to them
Our gift is our love at helm

Each one can now parade on this stage
We are the performers
We are the audience of all age
No one to flaunt
No one to daunt
Our world is ours to create …

Confidence …split between Worldly & Universal

Confidence is being sure of self or free of doubt. My exploration and revelation about it has been amusing to me. In any given moment the word confidence means nothing to me. I don’t relate to it or I don’t sense it in my body. Wait, let me finish 🙂

If I were to think of times when I felt very sure of myself, they come very easily to me. The times when I am writing like this, some poetry is flowing out of me or I am with a student, my sons or friend to answer a question that I am very sure I can answer. At least I can always answer ‘I don’t know’. I am not shy of that answer at all.

Those are the times I am confident of what I am saying and what I mean. Yet confidence is not a dominant part of my body language. All I know is when I am sure of myself, I am very relaxed in my way of being. The words, actions and answers are coming through me from some place of knowing that I am unable to own. It is more that I am willing to be owned by that knowing, I have surrendered to all the Universal knowing that wants to flow through me. This always keeps working for me, as long as, I stay in this space that gives true joy in my being. That joy becomes a delight when others understand me.

The world is made of people on different gradation on the confidence scale. There are people of robust physiques and best confident body language, unable to recall the last time they felt very sure of themselves. This way of being has worked for them in the world and they have practiced it enough to feel and seem very natural. There’s people who truly embody their most genuine and very assured way of being. They inspire me.

I have spent more of my time facing myself than I have spent facing the world. I have had to reach to the core of the Universal wisdom to be able to survive some of my life moments. And I have practiced those truths enough in my way of being, to feel natural about them. I have no shred of doubt in me when they flow through me.

I can get very timid where the world setting asks for a prominent presence of visibility in the physical body. That is my learning curve to cultivate the essence and strength of knowing to become evident as a felt-sense in my being. And it is some person’s learning curve to reach to their core knowing and cultivate it, for it to merge with their well-stitched cloak of confidence. 

Where does each one of us place ourselves on the scale of confidence?
To me personally, it has 2 ends to it …Worldly & Universal. I will be working to bring them together …so I don’t feel like a split person in one body anymore …

P.S. I am sure of what I mean here, not at all sure of what it translates to you 🙂 Please enlighten me on my learning curve, either way, in agreement or in contradiction.